Dumpster Dive plus Rotavirus
by CommanderBunnBunn
Summary: Pre-series. Fluffy sickfic. Mac's bound to pick up a bug sometime while improvising with other people's trash and random found items.


Mac came home to Bozer after a work "conference" and spent the weekend in his room. Mac emerged a couple days later, hair a mess standing up in all directions, sweatpants riding up one leg, one sock on, and an old tshirt with an excessively stretched out neck hole slipped down off his shoulder.

Bozer greeted him cheerily, "Hey roomie, I wouldn't have known you were home this weekend except that I heard the water running and toilet flushing...constantly. You have some bad shrimp at that conference?"

Mac ran his hands through his hair to try to smooth it down to no avail, "No man, I'm good. I must have picked up a stomach bug or something on the plane ride back."

Mac shuffled toward the fridge but was stopped by Bozer from at least 15 feet away.

Bozer held two utensils together in the shape of a crucifix to ward off his plague-ridden roommate. "Keep your distance." He pushed the utensils out away from his body to hold back the encroaching blond-haired outbreak monkey. "I'm making some dope snacks to send to your office to impress that new girl. I don't want them contaminated with your cooties. I'll just throw you what you need from the kitchen or slide it over in a box."

Mac raised his hands in surrender. "I just want a Gatorade or something cold. I'm thirsty, and the tap water from the bathroom isn't cutting it anymore."

Bozer browsed the fridge contents for a moment, "Just water. Here, catch," he warned as he tossed the bottle toward Mac. It hit him in the middle of the chest, with no attempt made to catch it at all, and it rolled away slowly. "Sorry man, I didn't realize how off your game you were."

Mac sighed and shuffled toward the bottle, bent over to pick it up, and fell face first to the ground.

Bozer ran toward Mac, considering grabbing some gloves from the cabinet for half a second, but opted to tend to his friend immediately instead. He patted Mac lightly on the shoulder, "Mac." After receiving no response, the pat became a vigorous shake, "Hey Mac! Come on." He rolled Mac to his back. "If you don't say something I'm calling 911."

Mac groaned in response. "No. Don't. Just call Jack."

Bozer helped Mac get up and shuffle to the couch. He called Jack while grabbing a trash can from the bathroom to catch Mac's involuntary spills.

Jack showed up at the door 15 minutes later letting himself in. Bozer was in the kitchen steaming some rice and roasting a chicken in the crock pot for broth. "Glad you're here, Jack. Mac won't let me do anything for him. He says he's fi-" he stopped mid sentence at the sight of Jack looking just as exhausted and pale as Mac, wearing a shimmery blue pair of 90s Adidas tear away track pants and a really old thermal henley with too-long sleeves and a dozen holes in it. "Uh. Jack. I've never seen you in such...casual attire." he paused and looked Jack up and down again. "Those pants tell me you are moonlighting as a stripper at the Silver Fox or 2nd string from the 1996 NCAA Final Four. Dude, I think your whole outfit is older than I am."

Jack smirked, "Ha. ha. Looks like your boy and I picked up the same bug. And don't knock the ensemble, quick removal is key when you're reenacting The Exorcist from both ends."

Bozer cringed, "oh God! Now I'm sorry I said anything."

Jack walked toward the couch where Mac was stationed, "Hey man, I hope you're doing better than me." He pulled a bottle of blue liquid out of a plastic grocery bag, "I brought some Gatorade; I know you like the clearish white one best because it doesn't have blue lake or red dye number 40 or whatever, but they were out. You can watch this one return in technicolor."

Mac grunted and took the bottle, shoving it under his blanket.

Jack yanked on the sherpa lined velvety cover, "You gotta ditch that blanket. I'm willing to bet you have a raging fever, haven't drank or eaten in 2 days, and are wishing you were dead right now." Jack went to feel Mac's forehead with the back of his hand when Mac turned his whole body toward the back of the couch to hide. "Boy, if you don't let me check you out and give me that damn blanket, I'm gonna throw your ass in the tub and turn on the cold water." Mac grunted and let Jack feel his forehead. "Damn, son. Boze, can you bring a baggie of ice and a wet washcloth. I hate to be a pai-"

"Please don't touch anything." Bozer cut him off. "I've already added a case of Lysol to my Costco shopping cart. I'm happy to keep you two quarantined to that spot right there. Mac, do you still have that old Hazmat suit in the basement?" only half joking as he headed to the linen closet for a rag.

Unreasonably exhausted, Jack sat on the floor by the couch. He wrapped the bag of ice in the wet washcloth and placed it on Mac's forehead to distract him as Bozer took the blanket away.

"Come on, I'm cold." Mac whined and moved to push the washcloth off and grab for the blanket.

Jack smacked his hand away "Negative, Ghost Rider, you're burning up. I'm willing to bet you're at 102 and climbing. We don't want you having one of those federali seizures."

"Febrile," Mac rolled his eyes, "and I'm not a toddler. Plus it's from the rapid spiking of a fever, not necessarily how high the temperature is."

"Good to see the fever hasn't hard boiled your egg yet." Jack ruffled Mac's hair with a knowing grin and unscrewed the cap off the drink, "You need to drink something, hoss."

Mac scooted himself up into a more seated position to take a few sips and get Jack off his back. He grabbed the electric blue salty drink with shaky hands and took two pained gulps. Satisfied, Jack replaced the cap on the bottle and settled in on the floor against the couch, grabbing the tv remote. He readjusted the washcloth on his partner's forehead and placed the wastebasket closer to Mac who had already fallen back asleep.

Without warning, Jack's stomach lurched and intestines growled. He went to stand up, but the sudden movement made him so lightheaded that he almost fell on his face. He crawled towards the bathroom hoping Bozer wasn't privy to this scene.

Mac woke 20 minutes later, still unable to keep anything down. He grabbed the wastebasket in time, but now had to empty it for the next round that was already on deck. He dragged himself to his bathroom to rinse it out and almost tripped over Jack fast asleep on the bathroom floor between the toilet and sink; a towel balled up as a pillow, and his shirt hiked up to get as much contact with the cold tile floor as possible. One leg of his pants was unbuttoned all the way up to his thigh, but Mac wasn't sure if that was for strategic cooling or convenience.

The idea of moving another inch made his head spin, so Mac dumped the contents of the wastebasket into the toilet and crawled into the tub to lie down.

What felt like an eternity later, or maybe just 6 hours on the bathroom floor, Jack broke the silence. "When I came in here earlier," he started as he readjusted the damp hand towel draped over the top of his head, "I sat on the toilet so long that my leg fell asleep. I got up to go check on you and that leg just gave out, and I didn't have the energy to wait out the pins and needles, so I just slept on the floor." He pressed his left cheek against the side of the cold porcelain toilet tank. They both sat against the wall flanking either side of the toilet. Mac wasn't even sure where his pants were now, but he thought he could be sitting on them like a cushion. He was sweating and hot and miserable in the stuffy bathroom, even with the door open.

"Man, I thought we'd been through basically everything friends could go through." Jack tossed his hand towel into the sink and ran his hand back and forth through his flattened hair. "I mean, in the sandbox you have zero privacy, we've been blown up, shot at...shot, rolled a car or two. Hell, I've held you in my arms, wondering if I'd ever see you open your eyes again. I mean we've been through everything friends can go through."

"Tattoos." Mac's voice was soft and grizzly.

"Huh?" Jack peered around the tank at his best friend.

"Tattoos," he cleared his throat. "We don't have matching tattoos. Also haven't been in each other's weddings, named our kids after each other."

"Come on, man. You're ruining my broment." He paused and raised an eyebrow, "you really wanna get matching tattoos?"

"No, it's just one of the cliche things best friends can do that we haven't." He turned to look at Jack across the toilet bowl, "but I know what you mean. We leveled up again." Mac put his arm across the bowl in a pathetic attempt at a fist bump that Jack reciprocated weakly. "Now no more talking, my head is throbbing." He rested his forehead on his knees.

"Dude, if I had any liquid in my body right now, I'd cry."

Before Mac could correct Jack by stating facts about human blood volume, Bozer appeared at the bathroom door with his hands on his hips.

"Ok, that's it. I've heard 8 hours of dry heaving and bodily misery." They slowly looked up at him. "Jack, you have a burst blood vessel in your eye from vomiting, and Mac, I've not seen dark circles under your eyes like that since college." He leaned over and simultaneously pinched the skin on the backs of both of their hands to demonstrate the skin turgor. "You're sick, dehydrated, and I'm taking you both to the hospital." Their matching looks of displeasure earned them a curt "NOW!" from Bozer.

They snapped to attention and obeyed.

Mac waited till his roommate was out of view before struggling to put his pants on. Jack crawled out the bathroom door to see where he may have lost his decades old Nike slides on his initial trip to the bathroom. He saw one inside the bedroom and then saw the second fly into the room and land next to it. A pair of Mac's flip flops flew in through the door next, bouncing off the side of the bed and landing on the floor. "If you're not both out here in the Jeep in 3 minutes, I'm carrying you out!" Bozer hollered from the hallway.

Mere seconds passed before an exasperated Bozer showed up in the doorway with the sigh of a frustrated mother and helped Mac to the edge of the bed .

"I need my socks," Mac mumbled while looking at and wiggling his now naked toes.

"You know damn well they won't let you wear the ones without grippy bottoms. I brought your sandals. Unless you really want to wear socks with these." Their caretaker explained as he picked up the shoes and placed them on the floor by Mac. Bozer helped him up, supporting a fair amount of his roommate's weight across his shoulders and walked out of the room toward the garage.

On their way out, Wilt offered a hand up to Jack that he declined with a slight head shake, "nah, man, if I try to get upright, I'll pass out and pull your down with my deadweight. I'll be right behind you in just a minute." Jack crawled to his shoes and rolled down to his side pathetically to slide them on before crawling out to the garage.

The drive to the hospital was mostly uneventful, Bozer took the top down to minimize his exposure to the contaminated fellows in the back seat. The breeze actually brought a little relief, cooling their skin with the whooshing sound of the wind lulling them to sleep. Mac was leaned across the aisle, pressed into Jack's rib cage with one hand hanging onto the barf can. Jack had his ear pressed into the roll bar and arm leaning on the door frame when Bozer pulled into the hospital drive up entrance. He thought it was adorable if it weren't so pathetic, so he snapped a pic anyway to forever remember their rotavirus experience, just in case.


End file.
